Schuckit :In total 40% of the sons of alcoholics showed a decreased sensitivity to alcohol in terms of drunkenness, performance and hormone levels

Biochemical

This is because it is a neurotransmitter heavily involved in the activity of brain areas associated with reward.

A release of dopamine in the brain is associated with pleasure and a desire to repeat the action that caused the release.

Behavioural

Operant conditioning is most effective at describing the maintenance of the addiction.

The good feeling that the person gets from their action is a reinforcement, and the effect of a reinforcement is to make the person repeat the behaviour more frequently

Cogntive

Gambler’s fallacy is the idea that random events equal themselves out over time.

Sunk cost bias: Having put something in initially (e.g. money), we feel obliged to keep going no matter how bad it gets, to try to get back our initial investment. The problem is that it could just keep on getting worse!